In a village in Indian Punjab, 87-year-old Gajju Khan is waiting for a sound he has not heard for most of his life. He wants to live long enough to hear the call to prayer from the mosque now being built in Jakhiwal.
What makes the story more striking is who is building it. Local Sikhs and Hindus have given money, bricks, cement, and land so that their Muslim neighbours can finally have a place to pray.
Independent journalist Cheena Kapoor wrote about this in a photo essay published on October 28, 2026. It shows villagers restoring mosques that were abandoned after the violence and mass displacement of the 1947 Partition.
One of them is Bibi Rajinder Kaur, a Sikh woman who persuaded her grandson to donate the family’s farmland for the mosque. Her reasoning was simple. The other community has a place to gather. The local Muslims do not.
The Partition tore countless families apart, and the wound has been carried from one generation to the next. That is why the weight of this effort is so great. There are no grand declarations about tolerance here. It began with a piece of land, an unmet need, and a few neighbours willing to stand by.
As the mosque rises, something invisible is being joined to it: The everyday trust of living side by side.
Bangladesh has its own stories too, and they are not cast in one mould. In some places there are mutual gifts of land, in others a closed place of worship has been allowed to reopen, and in others neighbours have quietly made sure no one in the community went without what they needed.
A mosque and a crematorium in Bagerhat
In Fakirhat, Bagerhat, two people of different faiths each met a need of the other’s community. According to a report published in April 2022, Pranab Kumar Ghosh, a Hindu college teacher, donated land for a mosque, while Sheikh Mizanur Rahman, a local Muslim politician, gave land for a Hindu crematorium.
After the Dhaka-Khulna highway opened, Attaki Mor (crossing) became much busier. Shopkeepers and passers-by there struggled to find a place to pray. On the land Ghosh gave, a small prayer room was built first, and a larger mosque grew up around it later.
The crematorium problem was of a different kind. The old one on the bank of the Bhairab river had been swallowed by the river, leaving Hindu families with nowhere to perform last rites. Mizanur Rahman, who owned the adjoining land, gave a portion of it for a new crematorium.
The needs were different, but the understanding was the same: You respect your neighbour’s religious obligations even when they are not your own.
Ghosh’s college later recognized his contribution, and local leaders held up both initiatives as examples of harmony. Most striking of all, the generosity went both ways, and neither man was asked to embrace the other’s faith.
A temple reopens after 47 years in Rajshahi
In Rajshahi, generosity took the form of an unlocked door. Regular puja had not been held at the Khojapur Sarbojanin Shib and Kali Matar Mondir (temple) since 1975. The land the temple stands on had been bought by Korban Ali, a Muslim businessman.
When local devotees wanted to reopen the temple, he agreed. In March 2022, devotees returned to observe Maha Shivratri, and to make the way easier, Ali even removed two mango trees himself.
A report captures the emotion and weight of that first major puja in 47 years. The path to the temple had become hard to reach, and Ali let the devotees walk through his own land.
No land changed hands here, yet the episode matters just as much. Ownership of land could easily have meant a locked gate. Ali instead made room for his Hindu neighbours.
A reopened temple cannot erase decades of silence, but it has given one community back a place tied to its faith and history.
When the state makes room
Government institutions have given land too. In October 2018, the then prime minister announced a gift of about one and a half bigha of adjoining land to the Dhakeshwari Temple, one of the country’s most important Hindu places of worship.
In August 2025, Bangladesh Railway allotted land in Dhaka’s Joar Sahara area for two mosques and a Hindu temple at a nominal price set by the railway authority.
These were not acts of personal kindness, and it would be wrong to read them that way. One was the announcement of a political leader holding public office, the other an institutional allocation.
Their value lies in a public message: Different communities in the same city need safe places to worship. But how much of that value becomes real depends on what happens after the announcement: The legal transfer, how the land is used, and whether the institution can actually put it to use.
Where land is held by a public agency, transparent rules and fair access matter most.
Interfaith help is not always about land. A two-day Harinam Moha yogga of Matua devotees, held in April 2026, took place at Bangladesh Ashwini Sebashram in Ganga Channa village, Chitalmari upazila, Bagerhat. There were rituals, devotional songs, and a local fair. People of other faiths, including Muslims, volunteered to provide water, resting arrangements, and other services.
These acts may seem modest, but big gatherings run on help passed from hand to hand. A neighbour who offers water or shelter can be part of the event without taking part in the rituals. The only thing asked in return is that we give a neighbour’s festival the same consideration we hope for our own.
A neighbour’s land, a young man’s future
Generosity can reach beyond places of worship. According to a report published in October 2026, a Hindu resident of Juri in Moulvibazar donated some land to his Muslim neighbour. The young man had got a job at Sonali Bank but ran into trouble during the recruitment verification. His family lived in a rented house, and no immovable property was registered in his father’s name. The land was given free of charge, and the donor also paid the registration costs. A sub-registrar confirmed the transfer, though the report did not name the parties.
This was not a gift for a mosque, temple or church, yet it belongs to the same story: How people respond to one another’s needs across religious lines.
Sometimes the most meaningful help is not a building or a public event. It is an opportunity that might otherwise have been lost.
Religious communities have also stood together by donating land for their own places of worship. In Chittagong, former president Ziaur Rahman gave land for the Purnachar International Buddhist Temple and guest house, as mentioned in a report.
Three acres of land donated by a parish secretary and other members in Tangail helped establish St John’s Church in Sridampara village, where about 65 Garo families worship. Neither account proves donations across faiths, but both show how land and community contributions can sustain religious life.
Harmony does not mean the absence of disagreement
These stories are not all of one kind. Some are personal generosity, some are government decisions, some are practical help, and each has to be understood in its own context. Nor does a handful of good examples mean that religious minorities never face discrimination, insecurity, or property disputes.
Harmony cannot be measured by counting how many temples, mosques, and churches stand side by side. It depends on whether people can worship freely, whether property rights are protected, whether the authorities settle disputes fairly, and whether neighbours can trust one another without fear.
A donation can be generous, but the chance to worship should never depend on one landowner’s goodwill. It is a right, and state institutions must protect it.
The Rajshahi temple stayed shut for 47 years and reopened only because one owner agreed, which is exactly the kind of fragility a right is meant to remove. Empathy strengthens the bonds of coexistence, but it cannot replace equal citizenship, accountability, and the rule of law.
That is why these stories should be told without exaggeration. They do not prove that harmony has been won for good. They only show that people can make it possible in their own neighbourhoods if they choose to.
In Punjab, an old man waits for the call to prayer. In Bagerhat, land gave one community a place to pray and another a place for last rites. In Rajshahi, a temple door opened after decades. In Dhaka, public land has been set aside for different faiths. In Moulvibazar, a neighbour’s small plot secured a young man’s future.
The circumstances differ from place to place. The principle stays the same: Nothing says that another person’s faith, grief, festival, or need has to set us apart.
A piece of land cannot erase the violence of history, and one generous act cannot guarantee a peaceful future. But when people make room for one another, they build something no declaration can: A place where neighbours can pray, mourn, celebrate and belong.
Perhaps that is where harmony begins, with the recognition that everyone has a right to dignity, safety and a place in society, and that protecting it is a public duty, not a private favour.
Nafew Sajed Joy is a Bangladeshi researcher, writer and environmental activist. He has a deep interest in sustainable development, development issues and South Asian affairs.
